Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/14

 obscure wherever a ligature is applied to a part of the body, or the veins are closed in some other way."

I trust I shall be pardoned if I do not go more fully into this question of priority, but refer those in whose mind any doubt may remain, to the original works of Cesalpino, where they will find much to interest them. Even the brief quotations that I have laid before you appear to justify to a certain extent the claims that have been raised for higher distinction among the physiologists of the past for Ccsalpino than may have hitherto been awarded him, but at the same time I venture to think that they are conclusive as to the view that Cesalpino cannot be declared worthy to occupy the place so long and universally assigned to our illustrious countryman. Certainly Cesal- pino himself was not conscious of having made an important, if any, discovery; for he introduces the subject of the circulation incidentally in a chapter headed "Cor non solum arteriarum sed et venarum et nervorum principium," and nowhere lays stress upon what is now claimed as his pre- rogative. Even among the list of subjects con- tained in his Index eorum que notatu digna visa sunt the circulation is not inserted. Lest, as Englishmen, we may be tempted to take a one- sided view of the question, permit me to adduce a few words from the work of one of the most